With the launch of the Sony Xperia Z at the beginning of the year, Sony bought about a new era in mobile technology by combining premium high-end specs with rugged dust and waterproof features. When Samsung launched their Galaxy S4 flagship earlier this year, it was only a matter of time before they bought out a rugged version and so we have the Galaxy S4 Active.

The Galaxy S4 Active brings rugged dust and waterproof certification to the Galaxy S4 flagship without skimping too much on the specs. The two handsets are very similar except the Galaxy S4 Active drops the camera to 8MP resolution and adds dust resistance and waterproofing for up to 1 metre and 30 minutes.

We’ve already unboxed it and gone hands on for your viewing so how does the Galaxy S4 Active handle being put underwater? We’ve decided to bring you another underwater test to show you just how well it handles being submerged.

As you can see the Galaxy S4 Active continues to work underwater and even play video whilst submerged beneath the depths. However, the speaker crackling is an issue we were not expecting but could be expected for an uncovered unprotected speaker grill.

Overall the Galaxy S4 Active offers the rugged features desperately missing from the Galaxy S4 flagship without dropping the specs too much and includes that premium Super AMOLED Full HD screen. Not bad from Samsung but sadly, it doesn’t last…